Friday, October 12, 2012

The
acknowledged territory of the Republic of the Philippines has since
Edsa I been apportioned to foreign countries: a piece here, a piece
there. Sabah, ARMM and now the expanded Bangsamoro and the Sulu Sea.
This is “ap-piece-ment” of the Republic to the foreign powers and
interests. Led by a scion of the Yellow ruling class, the country now
submits again the Filipino people to humiliation and imperial
victimization again in an onerous, destructive ceding of Cotabato City,
Isabela City, and the municipalities of Baloi, Munai, Nunungan, Pantar,
Tagoloan and Tangkal in Lanao del Norte province, barangays from
Kabacan, Carmen, Aleosan, Pigkawayan, Pikit and Midsayap towns in
Cotabato City, and the greatest prize of all — the Sulu Sea where
Exxonmobile and others have has set its eyes on.

GRP peace panel
negotiator Marvic Leonen says no foreign influence figured in the peace
deal, but not so secret “dirty little secret” is that the USIP (United
Institute for Peace) led by J. Robinson West of the largest energy
consulting firm PFC Energy, has its dirty hand all over it. Leonen’s
prevarication shows that the peace talk panel representing the
Philippines and its work deserves no respect from the Filipino people as
the panel is devoid of integrity. The peace talks are an expensive
sham. The UNDP stepped up to gift the major Philippine peace panel
negotiator an N-Peace Network award, to reinforce the respectability of
this ap-piece-ment and the negotiators who carved off more pieces of
Filipino flesh to the Western oil interest. UN agencies are invariably
used as tools of US and Western powers to legitimize imperial projects
with such honorific blessings, such as in Kosovo which was wrest from
Serbia.

The other title for this article is “Pipsqueak Leaders,”
highlighting how small or insignificant this country’s leadership is
before the subterfuges and pressures of the US and Britain (represented
by client Malaysia) to negotiate away 75 percent of the economic wealth
of the country. As the rebel MILF band’s vice chief for Political
Affairs Ghadzali Jaafar told the Philippines over a radio interview
their 75 percent share is non-negotiable. Ninety percent of that 75
percent will go to the US and Britain while crumbs will be thrown to the
likes of Jaafar empowering them to be little potentates like the US
surrogates in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, etc. Can Bangsamoro ever
become a developed state? Not in anyone’s lifetime. It’ll be just like
feudal, archaic Middle Eastern kingdoms the US controls and ready when
needed to be used to control US hegemony as the potentates do in the
Middle East.

Pipsqueak Philippine media pushes “ap-piece-ment,” too:
from Inquirer: “The glowing praises are richly deserved. After a
protracted internecine war, one that has brought untold suffering on
Muslim Mindanao, there’s real hope the war may finally end.”

What
about he “untold suffering” of Filipino soldiers who fought to defend
all Filipinos’ sovereignty and the Filipinos’ continuing impoverishment
with the looting of 75 percent of its economic wealth in the Sulu Sea? In
the Philippine Star one writes, “Leonen has convinced me from a
distance that it is providential the Bangsamoro will be born during the
watch of President Aquino whose only concern is peace and prosperity for
the people of Mindanao … Since I see no alternative, I am willing to
take my chance with it.” Providential my eye, curses instead: Cory
Aquino gave Sabah away; BS Aquino III cedes even more territories.

No
alternative? The alternative is clear — defend national sovereignty
over all our territory undisputed in any international forum. President
Marcos defended that sovereignty, won and laid the basis for a durable
peace with the Tripoli Agreement; but after he was deposed in 1986 by
the conspiracy of the US and local oligarchs, the US stooge who
succeeded him, Corazon Aquino, returned to the country the leader of the
defeated MNLF and reinvigorated the secession movement. Likewise, under
President Estrada the MILF was demolished at Camp Abubakar and its
leader Hashim Salamat fled to Malaysia and beseeched US President Bush
to restore him in Mindanao. When Estrada was deposed by the same forces
that deposed Marcos, the Edsa II successor Gloria Arroyo restored the
MILF to its former glory. Forgetting is not an option.

Two years back
I wrote “The Traitor Class,” about the Yellows cabal in Philippine
politics that serve as handmaiden of the foreign powers. While that
class runs the show in the country the Philippines will never win any of
its struggles against the imperial and neo-colonial powers. How I envy
those countries in Latin America that are already in the process of
successfully throwing off the yoke of colonialism by nationalizing
foreign resource-extraction and public utilities corporations, striking
independent foreign policies, respecting each other’s sovereignty,
opposing foreign interventionism. Venezuela just overwhelmed the US
sponsored presidential candidate for Hugo Chavez. In the Philippines,
time will come when we can revisit the Mindanao issues and recreate a
truly just peace that keeps the national intact for all Filipinos
benefit and welfare.